


Roma

by heretherebemonsters



Series: A City With A Story [3]
Category: Assassin's Creed
Genre: Best Friends, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Groping, Jealousy, Kissing, M/M, Rescue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-07
Updated: 2013-12-07
Packaged: 2018-01-03 21:11:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1073091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heretherebemonsters/pseuds/heretherebemonsters
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Leonardo goes missing, Ezio is determined to find him. Fluff ensues.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Roma

**Author's Note:**

> I own nothing you recognize.

When Ezio returned to Leonardo’s workshop that sunny day to find Salai alone and Leonardo gone, the assassin felt something he hadn’t allowed himself to feel in many years. A stab of sudden, harsh panic sliced through him, catching him by surprise. It was a wild, desperate thing, this panic, filling him with a need to find his friend and find him fast. 

Ezio pushed the feeling aside irritably after identifying it for exactly what it was. He had no use for such emotion and he knew that panic would do him nor Leonardo any good. It would merely cloud his judgment, make him clumsy and hasty. He had no desire to bring harm to Leonardo through his own carelessness.

Though perhaps, a corner of his mind whispered, it was his lack of care that had caused this very situation to come about.

Salai was just as shook up as Ezio and the older man knew it would be up to him to keep them both from falling apart in Leonardo’s absence. As clever and independent as Salai was, he was still just a boy and unfamiliar with tragedy and hardship in the way Ezio was. Salai’s sharp tongue had abated upon finding his master missing and Ezio could see the fear in his dark eyes plainly. Salai was afraid he would never see Leonardo again and if Ezio was honest with himself, he held the very same fear deep in his heart.

Ezio realized sadly that both of them had taken Leonardo’s presence for granted; indeed, it had never crossed Ezio’s mind that someday Leonardo might not be there. 

Salai spoke of the paintings and the papers hidden in the frames and Ezio set out grimly to find them. Days passed as he scoured Roma for the paintings, dragging them back to the workshop one by one, where Salai set to work immediately dismantling them and searching for the sheets tucked within the frames. Ezio stayed only long enough to pass the art off to the boy before setting out again.

Finally, a seemingly endless three days and one flirtatious encounter with Lucrezia Borgia later, Ezio arrived back at the workshop triumphantly, the final painting tucked under his arm. He entered the building to find Salai standing in the center of a mess of empty frames and notebooks scattered on the floor, looking despondent. The paintings he’d removed from their settings were all carefully set aside, covered with drop cloths. Ezio was pleased to see that the boy had taken care of them. It would not do to have any of Leonardo’s beautiful masterpieces damaged in the frenzy of getting their artist back.

Ezio stopped just inside the doorway. “What’s wrong?” he demanded once he’d caught sight of Salai’s expression.

Salai spread his hands out to encompass the clutter around him. “The sheets in the frames…they were not there at all.”

Ezio felt his heart sink. “None of them?”

Salai shook his head and said nothing. Ezio stood still, rooted to the floor. Funnily enough, all he could think of was how pointless the work of the last three days had been. To think that he had gotten close to that Borgia bitch for nothing!

“I should have gone to La Volpe,” Ezio muttered darkly. “Surely his men know something.” The Fox had spies everywhere, after all. 

Salai didn’t seem to notice that Ezio had said anything. The boy’s expression had turned thoughtful and he seemed to be remembering something of great importance. Suddenly, he whirled to face Ezio and began babbling excitedly. Ezio was caught by surprise again for the second time that week. He tried to keep up with what Salai was saying before the gist of it settled into his brain: invisible writing. 

Of course Leonardo would use something like that.

They both rushed for the nearest painting, Ezio quite forgetting about the one under his arm. They held it between them, tilting it this way and that in the candlelight, studying it for some kind of marking, anything. There was nothing that glimmered or caught the light.

Then Salai seemed to have what Ezio would later admit to himself was a stroke of genius. “Ezio! You can see the marks. Use your gift!”

“He told you about that too?” Ezio frowned. He’d already been displeased by the amount of knowledge the boy had about things he shouldn’t have known. 

“Leonardo tells me everything,” Salai said absently. If he meant it by way of apology, it did little to make Ezio feel better. Regardless, he effortlessly slipped into his eagle vision and the world became varying shades of black, blue and white. Beside him, Salai was a bright shining blue form, which irked Ezio more than he wanted to admit. He had been expecting the boy to show up red, considering the thinly veiled dislike they shared for each other.

He gazed at the painting and there a picture stood out in shimmering gold, incomplete, a mere fragment of something larger. “I see something,” Ezio informed his companion. “Like part of a map.”

“A map?” Salai’s tone was thoughtful. “The rest of it must be on the other paintings.”

Ezio held out a hand. “Bring me paper and ink.”

It didn’t take him long to draw out the images he could see on the surface of the paintings. A series of small drawings came together to form a larger one and Ezio shifted out of eagle vision to take a clear look at the map.

“There’s still two pieces missing,” Salai commented, pointing to the corners of the map where the lines stopped abruptly. 

“The paintings that burned in the villa attack,” Ezio murmured. He felt a momentary twinge of sorrow that something that Leonardo had created had been so needlessly destroyed. Then he went on in a louder tone, “I don’t think it will matter. There’s enough here…” He paused as he continued to study the map.

“What is it?” Salai asked.

“I know this place,” Ezio replied, gesturing at the map. “I have been here before.” He pushed away from the table and headed for the door. “I will find him.” There was no doubt in Ezio’s voice. He was confident in his own skills.

“Then go,” Salai said quietly. “Bring him back to me, Ezio.” 

Ezio said nothing and merely let the door swing shut in his wake. The boy’s words had roused his ire and he let the fire of his emotion carry his feet swiftly through the streets of Roma. Did the whelp think that he was the only one who loved Leonardo? Hadn’t Ezio known Leonardo for much longer? Hadn’t they shared a great deal of their lives with one another? Didn’t he have as much a claim on Leonardo as anyone else?

As soon as that thought came, he realized he didn’t really have a claim on the artist at all. Ezio had missed his chance at that long ago. 

It didn’t take Ezio long to reach the underground network of catacombs that had been a lair of Romulus just a year ago, before Ezio had driven the dwellers out. Sliding through the narrow entrance, he landed with a soft thump on the damp earth below. The place was just as dark and dank as he remembered it being, several branches of long tunnels reaching out ahead. Ezio remembered the way from the last time he’d been here but he still paused occasionally to think back to the map he’d drawn out, checking that he’d gone in the correct direction. Soon there were torches to periodically light his way, telling him that someone had been this way very recently. 

When he found Leonardo’s kidnappers, they had already beaten the man nearly senseless. Ezio was instantly enraged; how could anyone hurt a gentle soul like Leonardo? Leonardo who bought songbirds at the markets merely to set them free. Leonardo who refused to eat meat in the belief that innocent animals shouldn’t have to die for humans to live. 

Ezio rained merciless justice down upon the artist’s attackers, swiftly dispatching them to their Maker without a second of regret. His anger at them fueled his strikes with such power that they were unable to deflect his blows and they all fell with the surety and inevitability of rain. Ezio had whirled to move over to Leonardo’s crumpled form before the last of them had even hit the floor, sliding his dagger back into his belt.

Leonardo was wiping the blood from his nose with a shaky hand but he offered Ezio a valiant smile when the assassin knelt by him. “Ezio! I’m so glad to see you.” Leonardo’s voice creaked like old leather, rough from lack of use.

Ezio was horrified at what the bastards had done to his best friend. Leonardo’s lip was split wide open and one eye was nearly swollen shut. All over his handsome face bruises were forming, black, yellow and purple lumps. Ezio had seen them putting their boots to Leonardo’s ribs and knew there were injuries he couldn’t see hidden under Leonardo’s clothes. 

“I’m sorry I didn’t get here sooner,” Ezio said regretfully, helping Leonardo into a sitting position. 

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Leonardo scolded softly and then coughed weakly. Ezio winced in sympathy; no doubt his ribs were sore. “You got here and that is what is important.” Leonardo turned his blue eyes on Ezio and he saw that they were as clear and bright as always. “You always seem to be there in the moments when I need you most,” he said quietly. “Do you remember the other times you saved me?”

Ezio did remember, very vividly. The incident with the wagon on the way to Venezia, when Ezio had had to rely on all his skills and quick thinking to get them through. And the first time, in the courtyard of Leonardo’s workshop in Firenze, when Ezio had tested out the newly repaired hidden blade for the first time and found it extremely useful. 

“How could I forget?” Ezio said with the hint of a bitter smile. “Each time you were in danger because of me. I never forgave myself for that.”

Leonardo waved a hand. “No need for that, Ezio. I have never blamed you or held you responsible for anything that has befallen me over the years.”

Ezio shook his head. “I should have been more careful. I have not done a very good job of keeping you from harm.” Past and present swirled in his thoughts as he said this, thinking of how every time Leonardo might have been better off without him. Even now, today, Ezio had not prevented Leonardo from being hurt. He hadn’t been fast enough. He was swamped in guilt over this reality and anger at himself for what he saw in his mind as a failure.

Leonardo was watching him with a knowing look. “Don’t do that, don’t blame yourself,” he said softly, reaching up to touch Ezio’s cheek in a fond gesture. It was mindless and yet natural and Leonardo didn’t even seem to realize he was doing it. At any rate, Ezio found himself leaning into the touch ever so slightly.

“But-,” Ezio began.

“Hush.” Leonardo’s fingers slid across Ezio’s cheek to press against his lips, silencing him. “Do not ever think that you have failed me, Ezio. You have always been there to protect me when it really mattered.” He fixed a stern glare on the assassin. “And don’t you dare think about disappearing from my life because you think I’d be better off without you.” When Ezio’s gaze dropped guiltily, Leonardo gasped sharply. “That is exactly what you were thinking about, wasn’t it?”

Ezio nodded, still not meeting his friend’s gaze. “It would be better for you if you never saw me again,” he whispered sadly. The idea of never being able to see Leonardo again, never being able to bask in the man’s endless warmth and hope and optimism, broke his heart but he knew it had always been selfish of him to remain so close to Leonardo, knowing the risks of such contact full well.

“Do you really think I’d be any safer without you, Ezio?” Leonardo asked, his long fingers gripping Ezio’s chin and tilting his face up so they could see each other again. “Or is there more to this you’re not saying?”

“You have Salai now,” Ezio muttered, dropping his gaze once more in shame and embarrassment as a wave of jealousy overtook him. “He is young and beautiful and he can pose for you. You have no need for me. I regret that I cannot give you what you need.”

Leonardo couldn’t say anything for a moment. He had never expected such a confession and certainly not in such utter honesty and vulnerability. His fingers remained where they were, gripping Ezio’s chin but his thumb slipped up to swipe over Ezio’s full bottom lip before brushing the scar at the corner of his mouth. Whatever reaction Ezio had been expecting, this was certainly not it and he dared to look up at Leonardo. The artist was looking at him with such affection and fondness that it made Ezio’s heart twist painfully in his chest.

“Oh Ezio,” Leonardo sighed. “Do you not know how much I love you?” Ezio’s eyes widened slightly; it was the first open declaration of anything more meaningful than a deep friendship between them and it took the assassin by surprise. It seemed this was becoming a regular thing. 

“I have always loved you,” Leonardo murmured. “Ever since we first met. You were so young then, only seventeen, but you took my breath away. I have scarcely been able to stop thinking of you since.” Leonardo’s fingers continued their gentle exploration of Ezio’s features, ghosting across a cheekbone and along his nose. Ezio stayed perfectly still, thinking that if he dared to move, surely the spell would be broken and this gorgeous moment would never have existed.

“It is true that you have not always been able to give me what I need in any present moment,” Leonardo admitted. “You are gone more often than not. I do not blame you for it. It is the nature of your work and I understand that there were times you stayed away for my safety. But I grew lonely without you. That is why I took Salai in. He reminded me of you in many ways, a charming rascal.” Leonardo paused and chuckled softly before continuing. “I admit that I have grown fond of the boy but you have always had my heart and my attention. From the moment you walked into my life all those years ago, I have wanted no one else. Only you.”

Ezio let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding and in the very next beat of his heart, his lips were on Leonardo’s. The artist instantly melted into the kiss, his mouth welcoming. He moved closer to Ezio and raised his arms, wrapping them around the other man’s shoulders, heedless of any pain in his battered body. Ezio responded with a soft growl, taking Leonardo into his embrace and pulling him into his lap. Their kiss deepened and became a dance of dueling tongues as they explored each other, tasting each other. Leonardo shifted until he was straddling Ezio’s thighs. The assassin’s hands slid down to cup Leonardo’s ass, squeezing firmly. Leonardo moaned and nipped at Ezio’s bottom lip before breaking away for a gasping breath.

“You have been jealous since I took in Salai, haven’t you?” he teased. 

Ezio smiled sheepishly. “Yes. I have never liked the idea of sharing you with anyone else.” 

Leonardo smiled gently and yet it seemed to radiate outward into all the dark corners of the chamber, lighting Ezio’s world as it always did. “You never really were. I am yours, Ezio. I always was.”

Ezio thought that he had never heard anything so wonderful.


End file.
